I flew into Boston to visit Ted and finally finish up the 4000 footers. Our last in common would be Owl's Head, but I first had to redo Monroe and Eisenhower with him to check them off his list.
We left Boston around 730 am, which was a late start but much needed given lack of sleep from work lately. We decided to do the Monroe/Eisenhower loop and to start by going up Ammonoosuc Ravine to end on Edmands Path, hoping someone might be there to hitchhike with back to our car. The skies were clear and temp not too bad. The leaves were just past peak on the way up, going slightly into the southern Whites, but leaves are all gone up in Crawford Notch area. The presidentials had dustings of snow on the peaks.
Got to the trailhead at noon. The parking lot at the Cog Railway Station was full - the railroad was still running, to my surprise, as we would see it going up the track at least once during the day. Packed light and headed up the trail, starting relatively shallowly. Eventually we came upon the first waterfall - the pool from the falls was froze over, but the falls itself was keeping a small hole of the pool thawed - pretty cool. At the second falls the crossing was sketchy enough due to ice forming on some of the rocks and moderate waterflow such that I would not have been comfortable crossing it without traction. Or at least, since I had traction, I was definitely using it. However, I only had one micro so I was still careful. We then kept our micros on to proceed up the big slabs of rock section, continuing to feel that traction was necessary, but then we came upon four other people who were all ahead of us and got there without traction.
Once above treeline, the views were spectacular. Maybe a little bit of haze impeding the view, but about as clear as I've ever seen it up there. Great views of the gorge to the north and Willey/Tom/Field to the west. No traction needed above treeline - only below where water had formed ice. We summitted Monroe at 2:10 and snacked atop. We didn't really stop for the Lakes of the Clouds but we did have a great view of them from Monroe, as well as everything due east. Not a shred of wind on the summit either. We then skipped on to Eisenhower at 3:10, feeling some wind along the way. Great views there as well. We didn't spend as much time on the summit as might have been ideal, feeling like we needed to get down while still light out. It got progressively darker as we descended Edmunds Path, far ahead of the sunset time because we were slightly north of a ridge. It was almost dark by the time we got back to the parking lot and, unfortunately, not another person was in sight. We set off walking, and walking and walking. No cars on Clinton Road - when we reached Base Road I decided to try and jog the remainder to just get it over with while Ted and Sonsie waited behind.
Overall a long and tiring but beautiful and successful day.
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